Magic Tour and Christmas Update

The Magic Tour and Christmas Update (v1.22 of the game) contains two separate timed challenge events

The Magic Tour and Christmas update was released on the 3rd of November 2016 for iOS players, the 5th of November 2016 for Android players, the 16th of November 2016 for Facebook players, the 18th of November 2016 for Windows players, the 20th of November 2016 for Kindle players and the 21st of November 2016 for Mac players.

The Magic Tour and Christmas Update is also the second update in a row within which 2 different Avatars - one male and one female - were given to players for completing a Timed Challenge. Two avatars were given as rewards for both of the "reach Academician level" tasks in the two Timed Challenge Events added to the game by the update.

Christmas 2016 Timed Challenge - set to trigger on a set date a short period after the Magic Tour Challenge's official timer expires on each platform. Introduces the Festive Dinner hidden object picture. Contains 3 different challenges with unique prizes for players to win.

The Festive Dinner Picture and the 5 additional collections needed for the Christmas 2016 Event do not currently appear in the game, but all their information and images do appear in the game files. This extra content is just hidden on purpose until the trigger date for the 2nd event in December.

When a player downloads and installs the 1.21.22 update file, available in November 2016, all the content required for both events is installed on their devices. However, some of the content required for the Christmas 2016 Event remains hidden (not openly visible when playing the game) until the trigger date for this Event.

The second event is usually set to start on a specific date for each platform, typically this date is a couple of weeks after the official timer for the first event expires. Finishing the first event early will not force the second event to start early. The second event will only start when the device reaches the pre-determined start date for that platform.

However, it is worth noting that the implementation of this second event does not always go smoothly. There were many user reports of false (early and incomplete) starts of the second event in the last two double event updates, and this may happen again with the Magic Tour and Christmas Update. Players are advised to be cautious about forcing the events to start as there are desktop awards on offer during both events, which they may not want to miss out on.

The Magic Tour Timed Challenges are currently set to trigger as soon as the Magic Tour and Christmas Update is installed on a device.

The Magic Tour timed challenges begin when a player reaches game level 7 in the game (or automatically after downloading the update if the player is already above level 7).

The Magic Tour timed event contains 3 challenges. Players had a set number of days to complete the following tasks:

The Magic Tour timed challenges

Collect 500 Postcards by winning games of Gem Match to open the Souvenir Jewelry Box and receive a number of rewards (Tool case chest x1; Lunch box and donut energy items x1; Golden weight disk Talisman x1; and Much weight power item x1).

Complete 30 holiday quests to win the once-off Railroad Talisman which increases the experience points when playing pictures and puzzles by 100% for 24 hours when activated. Upon completing these quests you will also be able to combine the Engineer's Amulet Artefact, which increases the amount of time available to play Pictures and Puzzles by 60 seconds for 24 hours when activated.

Achieve 'Academician' level in Luxury Express to win 2 unique avatars, one male and one female.

For the duration of the Magic Tour challenge, Train Ticket special items are required in addition to energy points to play Luxury Express. Train Tickets are given as rewards for every successful investigation for every picture (except Luxury Express itself!), and as rewards for banishing anomalies, but not for playing puzzles. Train Tickets cannot be gifted between friends, however they are given as rewards for combining some of the new Magic Tour and Christmas collections, and they can be given as rewards by the Sphere of Miracles and Pyramid of Wonder.

Important: The amount of time available for the Magic Tour timed challenges will vary across platforms. It is important to note that the Challenge timer begins counting down from the moment the update is released in a device's app store, and not from the moment a player downloads the update. Delaying installing the update will not give you extra time to play the challenges.

The Christmas 2016 "Christmas Time" Timed Challenges are currently set to trigger on a specific date in December.

The Christmas 2016 timed challenges are potentially the second of two sets of timed challenges introduced by the Magic Tour and Christmas Update. These timed challenges are set to trigger on a predetermined date a few weeks after the Magic Tour timed challenges end on each platform.

The Christmas 2016 timed challenges is set to begin when a player reaches game level 7 in the game (or automatically after triggering if the player is already above level 7).
The Christmas 2016 timed event contains 3 challenges. Players have a set number of days to complete the following tasks:

The Christmas 2016 timed challenges

Collect 500 Mistletoes by winning games of Blocks to win the Pyramid of Wonder Desktop Award or upgrade an existing Pyramid of Wonder.

For the duration of the Christmas 2016 challenge, Christmas ball special items are required in addition to energy points to play Festive Dinner. Christmas balls are given as rewards for every successful investigation for every picture (except Festive Dinner itself!), and as rewards for banishing anomalies, but not for playing puzzles. Christmas balls cannot be gifted between friends, however they can be given as rewards by the Sphere of Miracles and Pyramid of Wonder.

Both of these Special Items were still required for each play of their Picture once the Timed Challenges were completed, and once the events were over both of these items were restricted so that they could only be won by playing games of Japanese House and Bungalow.

Harvest Baskets and Pumpkin lanterns being converted into the standard 5 special items at the beginning of the Magic Tour and Christmas update!

Both the Harvest Baskets and Pumpkin lanterns were removed from the game as part of the Magic Tour and Christmas Update and both Farm and Haunted Attraction are now regular pictures that just require energy points to play. The Harvest and Halloween Update collections that rewarded Harvest Baskets and Pumpkin lanterns as rewards for combining them were also changed to reward regular game items such as Talismans and items to banish anomalies.

At the beginning of the Magic Tour and Christmas Update, any remaining Harvest Baskets and Pumpkin lanterns in a player's Inventory are converted into equal parts Fireflies, Ladybugs, Carrots, Cupid arrows, and Tokens, the 5 main special items needed to play the regular paid scenes in the game.

As with all large updates released for the game, the Magic Tour and Christmas update will cause an overload in the games servers during peak times for a couple of days immediately following the release of the update on any platform. During this time players may encounter problems visiting and gifting, and be given a "Failure to connect to the servers" error message when trying to interact with the Friends portion of the game. The servers normally go back to normal after a couple of days once all players on that platform have downloaded the new update.

This glitch has returned to the game with the Magic Tour and Christmas Update, just a few months later. Mode dependent Collection Items can now only be won the play before the mode for that collection.

This glitch impacts Collection Items whose regular play locations are determined by the mode the picture is in. Mode dependent items can only be won when playing pictures in a certain game mode, but can be won in any picture as long as it is in the correct mode. Originally introduced by the Valentines 2014 Update, this glitch resulted in mode dependent items being won when playing a picture the game before the picture changes into the right mode for those items instead of during the play of the correct mode as expected. This glitch impacted all mode dependent collections, but in particular, made it incredibly difficult to obtain collection items from the mode dependent collections related to anomalies.

The problem has now been solved and the items from these collections can now be won by playing the modes specified in their descriptions. Below is a list of all mode dependent Collections currently in the game, and expected mode required to be in with a chance of winning their items, and how to actually win them:

When visiting Friends, players are returned to the first page of their Friend's list each time they finish a visit. This was how visiting and gifting originally worked in the game, but had previously been fixed so that players would return to the same page they started on when visiting a friend, so this is another example of the game going backwards instead of forwards in terms of fixing problems.